IBM Microdrive Is Out of This World

IBM
has sent us a press release about the use of their 1GB microdrive on two
shuttle missions to the International Space Station. The pictures were
taken using the Kodak Professional DCS 660 and are available on the NASA
gallery site for the missions STS98 and STS102, do a search for "digital".

After withstanding a series of tests including high doses of radiation
and durability in a weightless environment, the Microdrive easily stored
hundreds of data-intensive digital images from NASA's most important missions
to the International Space Station. The pictures were captured with the
Kodak Professional DCS 660 digital camera, providing six megapixel resolution
for high-quality professional images.

"IBM designed the Microdrive for reliability, high-performance and
huge capacity -- features that are essential to meet NASA's rigorous standards
for critical missions," said Michael Kuptz, Microdrive business line
manager, IBM Storage Technology Division. "If the Microdrive can
be trusted to help capture NASA's history-making journeys, imagine what
it can do to preserve your child's first smile or your business-critical
documents."

The high capacity of the 1 GB Microdrive enabled shuttle crew to be more
productive by giving them extra time to spend capturing images instead
of swapping in and out storage cards, as would be the case with lower
capacity removable memory formats. In addition, according to Kodak and
independent third-party testing, the Microdrive's high performance enables
Kodak digital cameras to write images to the Microdrive more quickly than
to any other storage technology.

The Kodak Professional DCS 660's six-megapixel resolution, offering precision
surpassing that of 35 mm cameras, met NASA's requirement for very high
quality images. Digital files at this high resolution can be as large
as 18 MB, compared to one to two MB for standard digital files.

"We optimized Kodak Professional's digital cameras to be compatible
with the IBM Microdrive because of its ability to quickly store and move
very large files," said Jay Kelbley, product manager, digital cameras,
Kodak Professional. "Kodak and IBM together offer a 'digital imaging
workflow' in the highest-quality image capture and storage solution on
the market."

NASA's in-flight images captured with the IBM Microdrive and Kodak Professional
DCS 660 digital camera can be viewed at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/
for shuttle missions STS98 and STS102.